UKRI updated its standard terms and conditions for both research grants and training grants for the 2025–26 academic year, with the most consequential changes taking effect on 1 April 2025 and 1 October 2025. The revisions raise the minimum PhD stipend, extend medical leave provisions, change how equipment costs are funded, and add new national-security compliance requirements. Research organisations need to update internal compliance checklists to reflect all four changes before their next award cycle.
UKRI terms and conditions are the contractual obligations that UK Research and Innovation attaches to every research and training grant it awards, covering governance, eligible costs, reporting, and — since October 2025 — Trusted Research and Innovation compliance. They apply automatically to any research organisation that accepts UKRI funding, regardless of which of the seven research councils, Research England, or Innovate UK makes the award.
Why UKRI’s terms and conditions changed for 2025–26
UKRI published its policy statement: review of the training grant conditions on 30 January 2025, setting out a package of changes following an equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) review of doctoral training conditions. The review drew on the EDI Caucus appraisal of the UKRI training grant conditions, an internal advisory exercise UKRI commissioned specifically to test whether existing rules created barriers for disabled students and those needing extended leave.
The standard terms and conditions of training grant, and the accompanying training grant guidance, were formally replaced with updated versions on 1 October 2025. UKRI republished the training grant terms and conditions as an accessible HTML document on 1 April 2026, retiring the previous PDF-only format — a change that affects how institutions cite and archive the current wording, not the substance of the obligations.
What changed in the training grant terms and conditions
The doctoral training changes are the most visible part of the update. UKRI raised the minimum stipend for UKRI-funded PhD students by 8% to £20,780, effective from 1 October 2025 — described by UKRI as the largest real-terms increase to the minimum stipend in over two decades. This is a floor, not a fixed rate: individual training grants and doctoral training partnerships may set stipends above the minimum.
Alongside the stipend increase, the revised conditions:
- Allow doctoral students up to 28 weeks of medical leave, with clearer routes to extend their studentship following medical or other leave.
- Require research organisations to remove procedural barriers that could prevent disabled students from accessing agreed support.
- Set out explicit expectations for transparency and fair treatment in how leave, extensions, and part-time study arrangements are communicated to students.
- Clarify Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) stipend calculation for part-time students and require the expected submission date to be recorded on the student record.
- Introduce clearer processes for flexible or phased returns to study, including a documented plan of study.
The same 1 October 2025 update also folded in Trusted Research and Innovation requirements that were previously handled separately, so training grant conditions now sit alongside research grant conditions on national security compliance rather than being addressed only through supplementary guidance.
What changed in FEC, equipment costing, and Trusted Research rules
UKRI moved to fund all equipment purchases at 80% of Full Economic Cost (FEC) from 1 April 2025, standardising a rate that previously varied by council and grant type. UKRI also raised the threshold at which a purchase must be classified as capital equipment from £10,000 to £25,000, which is intended to reduce the administrative burden of tracking smaller items through capital asset registers.
On national security, UKRI’s terms and conditions now require research organisations to identify and, where relevant, notify acquisitions that fall under the National Security and Investment (NSI) Act 2021. UKRI states that grant suspension or repayment is a possible consequence of a breach. This is not a new UK law — the NSI Act has applied since 2021 — but its explicit incorporation into UKRI’s grant conditions is new, and it converts a general legal obligation into a specific, auditable grant term.
| Change | Effective date | Applies to |
|---|---|---|
| Equipment funded at 80% FEC | 1 April 2025 | Research grants |
| Capital equipment threshold raised to £25,000 | 1 April 2025 | Research grants |
| Revised training grant T&Cs published (stipend, leave, EDI, NSI Act) | 1 October 2025 | Training grants |
| Minimum PhD stipend raised to £20,780 | 1 October 2025 | Training grants |
| Training grant T&Cs republished as accessible HTML | 1 April 2026 | Training grants |
Compliance checklist: what institutions must update now
Research offices need to work through both the research-grant and training-grant strands separately, since they carry different obligations and effective dates. For research grants, finance and grants teams should confirm that costing models already reflect the 80% FEC equipment rate and the £25,000 capital threshold, and that any live proposals or awards agreed before 1 April 2025 are checked against the older rate where transitional provisions apply.
For training grants, doctoral college and graduate school teams should verify that:
- Studentship offer letters and stipend schedules reflect the £20,780 minimum from 1 October 2025.
- Leave and extension policies explicitly reference the 28-week medical leave provision.
- Disability support processes have been reviewed for the barriers UKRI’s EDI review identified.
- Part-time student records capture FTE calculations and expected submission dates correctly.
Across both strands, institutions need a documented process for identifying transactions or partnerships that could trigger National Security and Investment Act 2021 notification duties under the Trusted Research and Innovation conditions, since this is now an explicit grant term rather than a background legal obligation. Research administration teams responsible for post-award compliance are typically best placed to own this checklist, since it spans finance, HR/student records, and governance functions that individually may not see the full picture.
Common questions about UKRI terms and conditions
What are UKRI’s terms and conditions?
UKRI’s terms and conditions are the contractual rules attached to every research or training grant it funds, covering eligible costs, governance, reporting, and compliance obligations such as open access and national security. Research organisations must accept and comply with them as a condition of receiving and retaining UKRI funding.
What is the UKRI training grant minimum stipend for 2025–26?
From 1 October 2025, UKRI’s minimum stipend for UKRI-funded PhD students is £20,780 a year, an 8% increase UKRI describes as the largest real-terms rise in over two decades. Individual doctoral training partnerships and grants may pay above this floor but not below it.
Do UKRI terms and conditions apply to PhD students?
Yes — doctoral students funded through UKRI training grants are covered by a dedicated set of standard terms and conditions of training grant, separate from the research grant terms that apply to principal investigators. These were substantially revised on 1 October 2025 to strengthen leave, extension, and disability-support provisions.
What costs are eligible under UKRI terms and conditions?
Eligible costs under UKRI’s Full Economic Costing (FEC) terms include directly incurred and directly allocated project costs, with equipment now funded at 80% of FEC from 1 April 2025. Costs must stay within the original grant cash limit, and exceptions funds cannot be used to cover ordinary directly incurred costs.
What this means for research offices going forward
The 2025–26 revisions show UKRI treating training grant conditions with the same review cadence it has long applied to fEC research grant terms — a pattern research offices should expect to recur. ARMA UK has previously flagged comparable UKRI fEC and training grant terms updates as requiring coordinated review across finance, HR, and doctoral college functions, and that cross-functional approach is again the practical requirement here.
Institutions that have not yet reconciled their studentship offer templates, capital asset thresholds, and Trusted Research due-diligence processes against the 1 October 2025 and 1 April 2025 effective dates carry live compliance risk on active awards. The next practical checkpoint is UKRI’s 1 April 2026 republication of the training grant terms in accessible HTML format, which institutions should treat as a prompt to re-verify that internal policy documents still cite the current clause numbering and wording rather than the superseded PDF.
